Half the 14 million people in poorer countries who need antiretrovirals get them

Countries must stand by their pledge to increase their funding for combating the HIV and AIDS epidemic to build on dramatic progress made in recent years, a report by the United Nations says.

In his introduction to the report, released a week before world AIDS day on 1 December, Michel Sidibé, executive director of UNAIDS, the joint UN agency on HIV and AIDS, focused on the success of the international response to the HIV epidemic: “Just a few years ago, talking about ending the AIDS epidemic in the near term seemed impossible, but science, political support and community responses are starting to deliver clear and tangible results.”

The report says that the annual number of people dying of AIDS related illnesses fell to 1.8 million in 2010, down from a peak of 2.2 million in the middle of the last decade. A total …